Toasting apparatus are used in a wide variety of applications, ranging from simple one or two slice toasters used in the home to more elaborate and large toasting apparatus used in restaurants, such as fast food restaurants, for preparing various bread-type food products. The larger, commercial toasters are used to toast sliced bread, rolls, muffins, biscuits, bagels, buns and similar food products.
In simple toasters used primarily in the home, the toaster most often has a pop-up mechanism whereby the food products are elevated after toasting so that a user can grasp the toasted products. In larger commercial toasters, the toaster typically has an upper mouth for depositing the food products into a toasting cavity, along with a lower opening from which toasted food products exit the cavity onto a ramp or grate. In either apparatus, crumbs from the final toasted products fall to the bottom of the toaster and create cleaning problems.
For instance, in larger commercial toasters, the bottom grate or ramp may be wire-type grate through which the crumbs fall to the bottom of the toaster, causing serious cleaning problems in high volume restaurants, for instance. In order to solve these problems, the bottom ramp has been fabricated as a solid structure, such as a sheet-like ramp of sheet metal material. Unfortunately, the solid or sheet-like ramps create their own problems in that the toasted food products tend to “stick” on the large surface area of the ramp. The present invention is directed to providing a toasting apparatus having a new and improved grate or ramp onto which toasted food products are deposited without sticking and without creating serious cleaning problems.